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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterOct 20, 2024, 11:38 PM ET
- ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
LOS ANGELES — In the end, when the Los Angeles Dodgers advanced to the World Series and created the matchup that will captivate an entire nation, it was a group of seven relievers who tackled nine innings. It was Tommy Edman, an unheralded midseason pickup, who supplied most of the production. And it was Teoscar Hernández and Will Smith, mired in weekslong slumps, who turned it on when they needed to most.
The 2024 Dodgers were initially defined by their stars. As their season evolved, they were thwarted by injuries. And when adversity hit, they were bolstered by the sum of their parts — by a fellowship that empowered them.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts alluded to it on the makeshift stage that was set up on Dodger Stadium’s outfield grass Sunday night, in the wake of a 10-5, pennant-clinching victory over the New York Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, when he repeated an oft-used phrase.
“I’ve never believed in a group of guys more than I believe in these guys,” Roberts shouted to the fans after setting up a highly anticipated, final-round showdown against the New York Yankees. “Most importantly, they believe in each other.”
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It was built.
“The way this collective group has come together has created that environment and culture,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said amid a celebratory clubhouse, his clothes drenched in beer. “There are a lot of people that contributed to that, but it really does take an entire group coming together to create something special.”
The Dodgers splurged more than $1 billion in a winter that saw them add Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, among others. But the following autumn presented a dizzying array of challenges. They needed to overcome a rotation that had been whittled to three starting pitchers after injuries knocked out Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone and Emmet Sheehan. They needed to figure out how to get consistent offensive production even though their No. 3 hitter, Freddie Freeman, was severely hampered by a sprained right ankle.
Mostly, though, they needed to conquer the layoff.
The past two years had seen the Dodgers secure first-round byes only to get knocked out in the ensuing division series by inferior NL West rivals. Their success this October, the players believed, would hinge on how they would treat the five days between the end of their regular season and the start of their postseason.
“This year,” Max Muncy said, “it was very player driven.”
The Dodgers wanted to recapture the comradery they felt when they won the championship at the end of the COVID-19-shortened season of 2020, while quarantined in a hotel for three weeks. The off time was their opportunity. They spent at least eight hours together at the ballpark every day, even when they weren’t working out. They watched the other playoff games. They ate. They talked. They set a tone.
“I’ve never believed in a group of guys more than I believe in these guys,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “Most importantly, they believe in each other.” Ashley Landis/AP
“‘We all love our family; there’s no question about that,'” Muncy said, recalling a conversation at the start of the playoffs. “‘We’re not questioning you as a father. We know you want to be the best husband you can be. But, boys, I need three weeks out here. We need three weeks. After three weeks, we win that World Series, we get that parade, you can be the best dad, best husband, in the world.’ When that message got sent out, and everybody really thought about it, it was like, ‘Absolutely.'”
Their togetherness showed in their perseverance. When the Dodgers fell to the brink of elimination in the NL Division Series, they rallied around a bullpen game to win in front of a hostile San Diego crowd in Game 4 and came back home to dispatch an exceedingly talented Padres team in Game 5. When they lost Game 2 of the NLCS, merely splitting their first two games from Dodger Stadium, they responded by combining for 18 runs from New York’s Citi Field in Games 3 and 4. And when they came back home for Game 6, one win away from their first World Series trip in four years, they continually applied pressure on the resurgent Mets.
Edman drove in four early runs, supplying a two-run double in the first inning and a two-run homer in the third to up his RBI total to 11 in this series, while on his way to being named NLCS MVP. Smith, who entered 5-for-36 this postseason, added a two-run homer later in the bottom of the third. Ohtani contributed an RBI single in the sixth, his eighth hit in 13 at-bats with runners on base this postseason. And a cavalcade of relievers — Michael Kopech, Ben Casparius, Anthony Banda, Ryan Brasier, Evan Phillips, Daniel Hudson and Blake Treinen, in that order — constantly thwarted Mets rallies.
Said Roberts: “I think they proved to themselves how tough they are.”
All told, the Dodgers scored an NLCS-record 46 runs against the Mets, a team they outscored by 22 runs. They became the second team with four wins of six-plus runs in a single playoff series, joining the 2007 Boston Red Sox, and the first team with eight-plus runs four times in a single LCS, according to ESPN Research.
Ohtani lived up to expectations, setting a Dodgers record by reaching base safely 17 times in the NLCS. But Muncy tied a postseason record by reaching base in 12 consecutive plate appearances; Mookie Betts shook off an 0-for-22 postseason slump that spanned the past two Octobers by slashing .342/.419/.763 over his past nine playoff games; Hernandez went from going hitless in 18 NLCS at-bats to contributing two big hits early in Game 6; Kiké Hernández continued to thrive in October, adding a couple of home runs to give him 15 in 81 career postseason games; and Edman, moved to the cleanup spot with Freeman absent, drove in more runs than he ever has in a six-game span.
Yankees And Dodgers Records This Season
Similar starts through April
• Yankees: 19-12 | Dodgers: 19-13
Stumbles in July
• Yankees: 11-13 | Dodgers: 11-13
Since September including playoffs
• Yankees: 22-13 | Dodgers: 23-14
— ESPN Research
The Dodgers’ offense proved to be overwhelming.
Their togetherness, Muncy believes, helped create that.
“Without a doubt,” he said. “When you’re in that dugout at this time of year, if you’re not together as a team — I mean, you can tell night and day. You’re talking about 13, 14, 15 guys in that dugout. When they’re all hanging on every pitch, hanging on every single swing with you in the batter’s box, and you can hear them, and you can feel them — that makes a big difference.”
The Dodgers will now advance to their fourth World Series since 2017 and still seek their first traditional championship, with a full-fledged parade on the streets of Los Angeles, since 1988.
They’ll face perhaps the only franchise more world-renowned than their own.
The Dodgers and Yankees have met in the World Series 12 times, tying the NBA’s Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers for the most common championship-round matchup in all the major professional sports. They last met in 1981, a series the Dodgers won; the Yankees won when they met in 1977 and ’78. Before that — before the Dodgers left Brooklyn and traveled West in the late 1950s — they spent decades sharing New York City.
The Dodgers were installed as small favorites over the Yankees in the World Series on Sunday at U.S. sportsbooks. Los Angeles opened at -125 at ESPN BET, with the Yankees listed as +105 underdogs.
“It’s going to be special,” Betts said on the field. “The world kind of wants this.”
ESPN’s David Purdum contributed to this report.
